George W. Bush’s decision to send American soldiers to topple the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.2
Prominent European intellectuals vocally criticized the US-led invasion. Prominent German scholar Jurgen Habermas and French philosopher Jacques Derrida publically denounced America’s non-compliance with United Nations resolutions and international law. These intellectuals were overwhelmed by the spectacle of US military preparations they were witnessing, which they called a “morally obscene division.” They write:
Like searchlights, they [US planners] picked out the civilized barbarism of coolly planned death (of how many victims?) and of torments long since totaled up (of how many injured and mutilated, how many thirsty and hungry) of the long-planned destruction (of how many residential districts and hospitals, how many houses, museums and markets). As the war finally began, the Ernestjunger aesthetic of the skyline of nighttime Baghdad illuminated by countless explosions seemed almost harmless.3
Italian thinker Umberto Eco declared that Bush was highly ignorant about Iraq, its people, and its culture.4 French philosopher and scholar Regis Debray argued, “Puritan America is hostage to a sacred morality; it regards itself as the predestined repository of God, with a mission to strike down evil. Trusting in Providence, it pursues a politics that is at bottom theological and as old as Pope Gregory VII.”5 Spanish intellectual Fernando Savater lamented the “massive aggression against a dictatorship” (Iraq) and argued that the attack demonstrated a clear path “toward a planetary order founded only on the hegemonic will of the greatest military power and not on the agreements assumed by the concert of countries endowed with state laws.”6 In sum, intellectuals around the world acknowledged that the United States had the military power to invade any country, but lacked the support of the international community to do so. The Iraq War went far to discredit President George W. Bush internationally. According to The Economist, Bush had “presided over the most catastrophic collapse in America’s reputation since the second war.”7
Today, a new discontent has emerged in the world, a discontent that is seriously damaging the United States’ reputation yet again. This time, the objection is not a rejection of American foreign policy, military engagements, or interventionist behavior. It is actually a critique of the nation’s domestic affairs: its political system, the nature of its elections, the quality of its democracy, and the character of its leaders. It is dismay at the poverty of American politics and problems internal to the American political system that have raised intense concern. The reaction reveals the extent to which American politics and policies have a profound impact around the world. At the same time, American elections are also opportunities for other nations to reflect on their own politics and national identity.
The international community’s current attention to the United States derives in large measure from the outcome of the last presidential contest and from events in the first eight months of the Trump administration.8 Beginning in mid-2015, observers around the world watched the presidential campaign with curiosity and astonishment. Donald Trump’s election seemed inconceivable. For many, his pronouncements were incomprehensible. No cultural codes or translations made them intelligible. The current American president was described as ignorant, authoritarian, misogynist, arrogant, xenophobic, racist, and even fascist. Trump’s personality, ideas, and behavior were frightening—he was the new leader of the most powerful country in the planet. As it often happens, dismay at Trump became dismay at an entire nation. Many could no longer recognize the country or the democracy that Alexis de Tocqueville and James Bryce once admired.9
This book presents views of the United States and the 2016 presidential election from the perspective of twelve countries. It seeks to show how nations from Asia, Europe, and Latin America have perceived the United States historically, and how their longstanding perceptions have been modified or confirmed by the 2016 election. This is a book about what “the other” thinks, and about “the others” views of American domestic and foreign policy. It is a book about other countries’ perceptions of the United States.
This introduction addresses four broad themes that frame the chapters that follow. First, I will examine the challenges involved in studying two different topics at the same time: views about the United States, and perceptions of the 2016 presidential election. Second, I will briefly examine why a domestic political issue such as the American presidential elections is important for the world. Third, I will discuss how presidential character has become a central concern for both American citizens and for foreigners. Finally, I will explore how income inequality, the mass media in electoral campaigns, racism and xenophobia, and the crisis of the American political system contribute to a perception of the decline of American democracy. In addressing each of these topics, I will present the American view alongside the perceptions of observers and mass publics in several countries around the world.
STUDYING FOREIGN VIEWS OF THE UNITED STATES AND OF THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
This is a book about the longstanding image that other countries hold of the United States, but also a book about a recent concrete episode of American history, the 2016 presidential election.10 Consequently, the analyses move along two different tracks, the longue durée and the short term.11 The longue durée helps us to understand perceptions of the United States that have a long history and complex configuration. They are rooted in interactions that have taken place over decades and in many cases, overcenturies. Time does alter such images slowly or makes them blur. Once these views are established, they tend to persist. Often, they even shape other country’s national identity. For example, Japanese pro-Americanism and affinity with the Republican Party is rooted in the post-World War II rebuilding of Japan and apparently Trump’s has not changed this tendency.
Short-term perceptions, on the contrary, are views that may have a brief life span, and can be changed by domestic or international events or incidents. For example, the Tiananmen Square massacre of June 4, 1989, significantly affected the world’s perceptions of the Chinese government, reinforcing the view of China as a country that systematically violates human rights. Many nations consider the United States to be a racist country. Yet the election of Barack Obama in 2008 as the first African-American president modified this perception and raised hopes that racism had finally come to an end in the United States. Donald Trump’s pronouncements on Mexicans, Muslims, and immigrants have effectively erased this short-term perception of a post-racial America and reinforced long held views of the United States as a racist country. If president Trump fulfills his campaign promise to build a wall along the US-Mexican border, it is difficult to believe that Mexico would ever recover the pro-Americanism it had before Trump’s presidential campaign. In sum, perceptions established over the longue durée comprise a solid structure, but recurrent disruptions and disturbing incidents can generate variations, at least in the short term.
The literature on foreign views of the United States is immense and ranges across diverse methodological approaches and perspectives. It includes the analysis of travelers, journalists, international relations scholars, cognitive psychologists, public opinion specialists, and international relations scholars using political psychology to study how governments send signals in efforts to shape how foreigners see them. Essays in this book sketch out foreigners’ historical views of
